Lingering shorebirds, lots of ducks, an opossum and a late moth!

 The autumn is getting quieter, but there are still lots of things to get one's attention. I have stopped at the Blenheim Sewage Lagoons, and there was a lot of ice, but that didn't mean there weren't any birds. I had a couple of species of shorebird, including several Killdeer walking on the ice...

....and a late Pectoral Sandpiper working the edges where there was a little open water.

One of the lagoon ponds had a bit of open water, where the waterfowl were concentrated. Given that it is waterfowl hunting season, although not here at the lagoons, the birds were a bit nervous, and the Northern Shovelers were often up flying around.

The Ruddy Ducks were more tolerant, even allowing me to get some relatively close photos.

Ruddies, plus a Bufflehead at the back

I went to the Erieau Marsh Trail, and there were a lot of ducks and coots out in the open water of Rondeau Bay, but well beyond photo range.

I did manage to see a Wilson's Snipe, quite motionless and presumably hoping I wouldn't see it due to its cryptic pattern. I got a distant photo.

A few Song Sparrows stopped their busyness in some shrubbery long enough for me to get a few shots

I had a reason to get out to Clear Creek Forest Provincial Park, and got a few photos. Some Wild Turkeys were feeding in a field immediately adjacent to the park, at a distance....

The park is closed on weekends for the deer herd reduction going on there, but since it was not a weekend, I decided to take a short walk to one of my favourite vantage points. It looks much more barren and winter-ready than the second photo below, taken in late October, from roughly the same vantage point. The creek bed in the first photo sure represents the dryness of the last few months, as there was not a drop to be found anywhere along this stretch.

The woods in winter are not for everyone, but I enjoy the solitude. On one occasion I went to Rondeau specifically for a twilight walk along a quiet trail, and other than a few geese flying overhead, a Sandhill Crane heard way out in the marsh, and a few Great Horned Owls and an Eastern Screech Owl calling, it was peaceful. Until I came across a Virginia Opossum along the trail, and it scolded me quite loudly for interrupting its solitude. It was way too dark to get a photo. This is one from a few years ago.

The even bigger surprise of this walk was to find a moth! It is an Autumnal Moth, a species that I have only seen on a couple of occasions when some came to my black light in early November a couple of years ago. As its name suggests, it is usually encountered fairly late in the season. This one was just sitting on the lower trunk of a maple tree. I didn't have my macro lens, so this is a heavily cropped photo, and given the twilight time of day, I had to use a very high ISO (3200) and held the camera as steady as I could with the lens being wide open (f/5) to get even a record shot like this. Fortunately the moth never moved, and I didn't need much depth of field to capture the pattern.

On another occasion I went out much earlier in the day, and saw a greater diversity of birds, and even got some photos. But the heavy overcast conditions made it challenging. There were several thousand Red-breasted Mergansers flying northeast, but well out in the lake....

...a bit of a surprise was to see almost 4000 Ruddy Ducks spread out over a large area of the lake, east of the park. They were not very close, and were spread out for well over a kilometre along the east side, enjoying the relative calm of the lake for a change. I have seen large numbers of this species on the lake before, but never in quite this abundance.

Along the trail I came across a group of 5 Cedar Waxwings, busily feeding on some berries and then flying up into a nearby tree.....

....and in the campground, there was a flock of 4 Eastern Bluebirds. I hadn't seen Cedar Waxwings or Eastern Bluebirds for quite awhile, so it was nice to catch up to a few of them.

The light was not good, and they were a bit flighty and against the sky, making a careful examination of them difficult. I am always hoping that some day, I will see a Mountain Bluebird, which has never been recorded in the park. I have seen them in Essex and Lambton, but so far not in Chatham-Kent.

A couple of Hairy Woodpeckers were along my paths.

I came across a couple of Norway Maple trees, in the campground, that still had leaves but were heavily blotched with a condition called Black Tar Spot, a pathogen that affects maples and sycamores and typically shows up in late summer and early autumn. I seem to find it primarily on the non-native Norway Maple more often than not. While it looks problematic, it apparently doesn't usually affect the long-term health of the tree.

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On the search for Snowy Owls; plus deer herd reduction, coyotes, turkeys and more

 With the sudden arrival of wintry weather, I went out looking for Snowy Owls in the former Dover Twp, northwest of Chatham. 

It is typically the time when the first ones show up in this area, and there have been one or two reported recently in places farther east. However in spite of my search in places where they are most often found, I came up empty. Last year was a great time to find them early in the season, even up until early January where we tallied a record 23 individuals on the Christmas Bird Count that includes this area.

During my search, a couple of days were quite windy. I was a bit surprised, and concerned, when scenes like this were fairly common.

While there are hedges of cedar and other species, they don't always make much difference, as this next photo shows. This photo was taken at the end of a lengthy hedgerow, and although the wind was blowing from left to right, there isn't much difference in the amount of top soil being blown about from one side of the hedgerow to the other.

I realize that due to the very dry conditions, early harvest and such, landowners want to get ahead of tilling the ground rather than waiting for spring. As a result, there is much less corn stubble left on the ground to hold the soil from blowing away, and this may continue for many months until the next planting season.

Also as a result of the lack of stubble on the ground, any Snowy Owls that venture this way may find it less conducive for hunting mice, etc., and therefore will move on. It may be quite a disappointing winter for finding Snowies, but time will tell just how disappointing.

I did manage to find a few other interesting birds to photograph, including the following. There were lots of Horned Larks along the roadways and fields.

Tundra Swans are widespread where they can find a field of corn stubble to land in.

A few Sandhill Cranes are still hanging out in the area, including this trio....

.....as well as this pair mixed in with various species of waterfowl in St. Clair NWA.

There were lots of ducks in flight at the NWA, often at quite a distance. This pair of American Black Ducks came by at a reasonable distance and with good light to make it a worthwhile photo.

There were several Great Blue Herons, again at a distance, other than this one which was reluctant to give me anything but a bum look.

European Starlings are often seen, typically in large groups, but sometimes feeding in berry bushes in small numbers.

In my travels I had come across a large mixed flock of blackbirds, and it included an adult male Yellow-headed Blackbird. The birds were constantly on the move as they searched for something to eat on the field, and before I could get my camera on the Yellow-headed Blackbird for at least a record shot, a Northern Harrier flew into sight, causing the ~4000 birds to make a quick departure. A day or so later I checked the field again, but saw no birds as the landowners were busily working away.

I usually end up at Rondeau at some point in my travels. With the wind, resulting in vigorous and noisy wave action, it is hard to hear the chips and other sounds that birds are most likely to make at this time. There have been a few migrants such as Fox Sparrows and Dark-eyed Juncos scattered here and there. Rondeau Bay was completely frozen over, at least in view from the park. The warmer temperature of the lake, as well as the steady wave action, has kept the lake open. There are flocks of ducks flying out at a distance, and gulls scattered here and there, some quite close to shore.

Ring-billed Gull

Bonaparte's Gull

Regular users of the park may be aware of the current Deer Herd Reduction program. It began last weekend, and will continue for the next two weekends. There are deer blinds put up in various location from which the hunters will wait. They won't be very visible from along the trails.

Deer control of one sort or another is necessary given the absence of their historical predators such as Timber Wolves and Black Bears, which were eliminated from the park long before it became a park. There were periodic efforts to keep the number of deer in check up until the early 1970s, but from that period until the early 1990s, for political reasons, there were no efforts at their control. The result was that the numbers sky-rocketed to the point where there were almost 600 deer in the park in the winter. Browse studies conducted by deer specialists indicated that the winter population of deer at Rondeau should be in the 100-125 range. This high population had dire effects on the deer as well as the vegetation in the park. The productivity of the local herd dropped considerably, and too many does were not giving birth to any fawns. In the winter, especially during coldest parts, some individuals were undergoing serious malnutrition, to the point where they would just sit down and die. As for the vegetation, the browse lines were quite evident, and there was a shift in the types of shrubs and trees that were being greatly reduced from the park's ecosystem. In addition, spring wildflowers were almost non-existent.

Some people have argued that there is an increasing number of coyotes in the park which should maintain deer numbers to acceptable levels. While it seems that coyote numbers are increasing, the deer are increasing faster. Also coyotes generally prefer smaller prey but will hunt down a deer when the opportunity arises. 

Which brings up another point. Coyotes are a mid-western species and never were a main feature of the heavily forested part of southwestern Ontario. But as the landscape opened up, coyotes arrived in increasing numbers. It is not uncommon for the sharp-eyed traveler to see one off in the distance. The first two photos were taken a year or two ago, in the open landscape of Dover Twp.

They will inhabit some of the few woodlands that remain in Chatham-Kent, as this next photo shows. I discovered a coyote den not far from where this photo was taken.

The increasing number of coyotes has had an impact on other wildlife. Native species such as Red Fox, Eastern Cottontail and Wild Turkey seem to be on a downward population trend across Chatham-Kent in recent years. The next two photos show what used to be a fairly common sight across the agricultural part of C-K.

 

Non-native species such as Ring-necked Pheasant and European Hare (a.k.a jackrabbit) also seem to have declined. Even at a large natural area such as Rondeau Provincial Park, the effects have been noticeable. Turkeys were doing quite well after they were re-introduced in Chatham-Kent several decades ago. They were seen regularly at Rondeau. 

A 2008 photo at Rondeau

I have found them to be a lot less common at Rondeau now, an opinion that was shared by a couple of long-term park staff just a few days ago. Turkeys were virtually non-existent on the Blenheim/Rondeau Christmas Bird Counts until 2004, when 26 birds were tallied. The numbers peaked at 349 by 2011, but thereafter gradually diminished so that for the last 4 years, even with an increase in coverage across the count circle, we are hard-pressed to get more than 50 birds on that count.

Even Red Foxes seem to be less common at Rondeau than they used to be. While it certainly is a general concern when native species decline due in part to the arrival of a species that is essentially not-native to the park, it has further effects. One of the natural controls of ticks that can cause Lyme Disease is the presence of Wild Turkeys, as well as Virginia Opossums, who feed on ticks. I noticed a decrease in ticks when the numbers of turkeys and 'possums were increasing. As one who has contracted Lyme Disease on 6 different occasions from Rondeau over a 30 year period, I was glad to see the numbers of turkeys and 'possums increase, along with what appeared to be a decrease in the number of ticks I encountered.

What will this increase in coyotes spell for the future?

Across the landscape of Chatham-Kent there has been an ongoing outlet for local hunters to engage in coyote hunts. On some days in the winter, one can see vehicles and hunters along rural roads and vegetated areas, trying to flush out a coyote or two. I have no numbers to indicate what level of success they have achieved, but have stopped to talk with an occasional hunter. It seems that they have had enough success to continue, and the hunters are certain that there isn't any shortage of coyotes to go after.

This next photo is of a recently shot coyote. I watched as a hunter removed it from the back of his truck and laid it out along the bank of a creek system. In many ways a coyote is a beautiful animal, just like so many other elements of the natural world. But just like a population of White-tailed Deer that gets too numerous for the benefit of so many other elements of nature, something needs to be done.

On a completely unrelated note, I came across this bit of information today, as alarming as it is, by a former vice-president of Pfizer. A short, but informative read here.

 

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Raptors, a rare egret and swallow and an unfortunate incident at Rondeau Prov Park

 Cattle Egrets are hard to find most years, and earlier this year that held true in Ontario. Even a reliable location in the Mitchell's Bay area where one or more has been present almost annually, did not turn up any this year. But in the last month or two, they have been relatively abundant, having been seen in numerous places across southern and eastern Ontario. While in places like Florida they seem to be attracted to golf courses as well as livestock pastures, one was seen as far north as Smooth Rock Falls, northwest of Cochrane, on a golf course!

It is quite likely that this influx of Cattle Egrets is the result of the strong southerly winds, including hurricanes, that have been a periodic event over the past couple of months.

Here in Chatham-Kent, there have been observations in the vicinity of the Ridgetown Sewage Lagoons, and more recently in a pasture with cattle, a bit north of Erieau. It is possibly the same bird, but no one knows for sure. At any rate, this most recent bird, still present as of yesterday, Nov 16, can often be easily seen from the road, although sometimes it is mixed in with the cattle farther back and hard to find. On occasion it will even venture out of the pasture onto the grassy road allowance, as in the case of the header photo as well as the third one down.

This next one is hardly cropped at all.

I got these photos on one of my trips to Erieau, searching for what ever I could find, but in particular, looking for one of the Cave Swallows that put in an appearance. But the Cave Swallows must have put a tracker on me to avoid me, as while looking wherever they had been seen, it seemed that I missed them by 2-10 minutes, or showed up just after I moved to another spot. Even birders who had traveled a fair distance arrived and saw one almost immediately. At one point I even spent two hours in one spot, where they had been seen 'reliably' about every half hour or so, but without success. Such is birding....

Fortunately I did not need it as a lifer, or even a species for my CK list. I have seen them irregularly on about 4 occasions over the years at either Erieau or Rondeau, including the time at Erieau where I found them roosting on a piling underneath a walkway in the vicinity of the fishing tugs. Here is a photo of that event, back in October of 2010, showing two Cave Swallows.

I decided to give it another try on the following day, and after some watching and waiting, I did see one of them fly by. Swallows are normally quite active in their flight, dipping and diving, but this one seemed to be rather slow and unenthusiastic. Perhaps it was feeling the effects of nothing to eat in the colder than normal weather, with temperatures just hovering a bit above freezing. Surely there were few, if any, insects to feed on.

While at Erieau on the day that I missed the swallows, I did see other things, and got some photos. For example there were at least 4 adult Bald Eagles flying in the vicinity from time to time, asometimes quite actively interacting with each other. I'm not sure whether they were defending their territory or undergoing some type of courtship actions.

Continuing on the topic of raptors, I spent a few hours at a site along the north shore of Lake Erie just west of Rondeau, hoping to catch sight of migrating raptors since the wind was more or less in the right direction. I did see a few, including lots of Red-tailed Hawks.....

...and a few Sharp-shinned Hawks, among others.

There were also a few American Crows on the move. They don't like anything pointed at them, so they quickly move away.

There were also a couple of small groups of Evening Grosbeak. It is another good year for this species to be moving into, or even continuing on and out of southern Ontario. I did not get any photos. They are usually flying low, barely tree top height, and fairly quickly and directly unlike the soaring flight of most of the raptors.

I spent a bit of time at Rondeau on a couple of occasions since my last post. The Eastern Screech Owl seems to have taken up residency in its regular American Beech tree just off of Bennett Ave. If one stays on the road, the bird does not seem to mind, but if you make any move to go off the road and get a closer photo, it will back into the cavity so that it is barely showing. Therefore a long telephoto lens and a heavily cropped photo seems to be the only way to show it. This photo was taken with the equivalent lens of 11X and cropped to about 40X.

 On one of my visits there was a strong east wind blowing. Wave action is imperative in shaping the sand spit, sometimes does so rather dramatically. At this time of year there are typically many species and individuals of water birds on the move. A careful look at this first photo if you click on it to enlarge it, will show a couple of lines of ducks off on the horizon, but very faintly.

On occasion there will be a flock relatively close, such as these Red-breasted Mergansers. It is not uncommon to see several thousand flying by over the course of several hours.

Some gulls, on the other hand, will occasionally be very close to shore or even overhead.

Bonaparte's Gull

And that brings me to the unfortunate incident at Rondeau. 

For anyone hiking anywhere along the southeast beach dunes of the park, you undoubtedly have noticed some changes.

Park staff counted 81 trees that had been cut down. Most were in the 5-15 year old category, but there were at least 6 oaks in the 40-80 year old category. Given the challenging growing conditions on this beach dune system, it takes a lot of energy for trees to grow here.

How did this happen? 

It seems partly due to poor communication between the federal gov't overseeing the Coast Guard, and staff in Ontario Parks. I don't know all the details, but for some reason the crew from the Coast Guard assumed they had permission to come onto provincial park land to clear trees that in their minds, might be interfering with views of the light beacon. The light beacon has been a feature of the southeast part of the park for many decades, as an aid to boaters needing it as a navigational aid after dark. While it is still important to some extent, with all of the satellite stations high in the sky providing accurate location information even down to about 5 metres of accuracy, the light beacon is not nearly as important as it once was. Nonetheless, this crew entered the park and proceeded to cut over 80 trees of various species and sizes. It is possible one or two of the trees may have temporarily interfered with a sight line from out on the water, but it would have been very temporary, and there certainly was no need to cut down any more than two or three at the very most, and even that would have been overkill, literally and figuratively.

The damage has been done, and it will be many years before any of the trees recover, if they do at all. Some will sucker up, especially one or two of the non-native species, but that only compounds the problem.

In discussing this issue with various park staff, they are understandably livid over this, and rightfully so. It seems there isn't anything that can be done at this point, and those piles of tree trunks and branches will be a reminder of this unfortunate incident for years to come, as things deteriorate very slowly in this very dry environment. Hopefully if the Coast Guard needs to step foot on Rondeau Park property at any time in the future they will discuss what they would like to do, in writing, and get proper approvals by Ontario Parks if it is warranted.

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